Today's word processors and dedicated drawing application programs enable users to create both simple and complex graphics. These programs allow users to create graphics using a variety of shapes which may be annotated with text. The graphics created by these applications may be stand-alone documents or incorporated into text documents. Despite the advantages offered by these programs, however, today's versions of these programs suffer from several drawbacks which hinder the creation and layout of graphics by the typical user.
One particular drawback of current drawing programs is that these programs typically utilize defaults for text properties (e.g. margins, line spacing, etc.) that are generic across all shapes and graphics. In most cases, these defaults do not look optimal across a wide range of graphics. As a result, users must manually override the default properties to obtain a professional looking graphic. This can be frustrating and time consuming for users.
Another drawback of current drawing programs is that these programs require a user to manually resize text within shapes as shapes and text are added to graphics. For instance, if a user adds text to a shape that overflows the boundaries of the shape, the user must manually resize the graphic or the text so that the text fits completely within the shape. This problem can be extremely time consuming when a large number of shapes with text are utilized in a graphic. This problem is compounded by the fact that many graphics look best when text is sized equally across related shapes. In order to accomplish this utilizing current drawing programs, a user must manually resize the text in each of the related shapes. This also can be time consuming and frustrating for a computer user.
It is with respect to these considerations and others that the various embodiments of the present invention have been made.